Chapter 12: Prologue: Call of Desperation (2)
A young boy with bright yellow hair stepped outside, with silent footsteps against the cold ground. Then... He clutched his cloak tightly around him.
Tonight… it was snowing.
Strange. Just monts ago, it had been spring.
But he knew what caused the winter.
Because this place—this world—was about to be dood if he did nothing.
Just as he reached the gates, he paused.
His gaze drifted back to the grand estate behind him—the Shahrazad household. The family that had taken him in when he had nowhere else to go. If not for their kindness, he would have rotted away on the streets, naless and forgotten.
And so, as his way of repaying that debt—Dae-hyun had made his decision.
No one knew about it.
Not even Aliyah.
He might not co back, but at the very least, he was confident he could stop the tragedy from unfolding—just like in the ga.
He turned to leave.
But then—
"Wait!"
The sudden voice made him stop in his tracks.
Turning around, he was startled to see Aliyah running toward him—dressed only in her pajamas, wrapped in a thin cloak.
Her breath was uneven from the cold, her eyes seems frantic as sweat turned to ice cold.
"Where are you going?"
Dae-hyun hesitated before responding with his own question.
"No—what are you doing here?! It's late! If the baron catches you wandering around in your pajamas, he'll lose his mind!"
"I don't care!" she shot back. "Are you planning to leave?"
Dae-hyun fell silent.
"Without even saying goodbye?"
His lips parted slightly, but no words ca out.
Aliyah clenched her fists. "Then I'm coming with you!"
"You can't."
"I'd rather live in the slums—or even in hell—if it ans staying by your side!"
"Ali..."
Their gazes locked with silence filled between them.
Dae-hyun's hands tightened on her shoulders as their faces reaches inches apart.
For a mont, the cold air between them felt warr.
And then—
"ACHOO!"
A loud sneeze shattered the mont.
Both of them jolted in shock, turning toward the source of the interruption—
Standing there, half-buried in his scarf, was Elijah.
"Goddamn, I don't even know if it's the winter or the damn flowers around here—ah… ah—ACHOO!"
Aliyah instantly shoved Dae-hyun away with a red face.
"B-Brother?!! What are you doing here?!"
"Enjoying a front-row seat to the drama."
"How long have you been watching?!"
Elijah simply shrugged. "Guess."
"How did you guys even know I was leaving?"
"Just coincidence," Aliyah huffed. "If I hadn't looked out my window, I wouldn't have seen you."
Elijah, of course, had a different answer. "I saw you packing your stuff earlier. Figured you were up to sothing."
A lie.
The truth was—he knew simply because he had written it in his novel.
"It's dangerous," Dae-hyun warned.
"I don't care," Aliyah responded instantly.
"Well, three is better than one, no?"
****
"Is this... the dungeon?" Aliyah murmured, staring at the massive entrance carved into the mountain's wall. "I've never been inside one before."
"Well, I wouldn't doubt our good friend's intel," Elijah replied.
Dae-hyun had briefed them earlier, warning about the appearance of an S-rank Nightmare—just like what had happened the first ti Elijah was transmigrated here.
Except this ti, Dae-hyun hadn't ntioned that he had been reincarnated.
Understandable.
"Let's go inside, Everyone, be careful."
The dungeon door creaked open, revealing nothing but suffocating darkness.
The three of them stepped inside.
And the door slamd shut behind them.
Torches flickered along the walls, casting long, blue shadows.
Aliyah lifted her hand, letting a faint green glow at her fingertips. "I'll track our surroundings."
Elijah, anwhile, tightened his grip on a small hunting knife. He preferred sothing simple—considering he had no real combat experience, it was better to use the easiest weapon to handle, rather than diverting into sword.
The deeper they ventured, the colder it beca.
The walls were lined with twisted roots, writhing slightly as if alive. Puddles of stagnant water reflected their uneasy faces.
Then—
A low, guttural growl.
Dae-hyun reacted instantly, sword raised just as a creature lunged from the shadows.
A wolf-like beast with decayed flesh and red eyes bared its fangs, saliva dripped from its rotting maw, seemingly injured and starved.
"A B-rank Undead Wolf?!" Aliyah shouted, raising both of her hands.
Vines erupted from the ground, snaking around the monster's legs, at thrashed violently, snapping its rotting jaws at the restraints.
Dae-hyun didn't hesitate. He stepped forward, with a blade carving through the wolf's exposed bones and flesh. The creature let out a final, gurgling snarl before collapsing into a heap.
But then—
More growls.
More red eyes seemingly appearing in the darkness.
"W-What is that...?" Aliyah's voice trembled.
Elijah's breath hitched.
As he already knew what it ant.
"It's a call for reinforcents."
Five more undead wolves erged from the shadows.
Aliyah's mahika surged, her control over nature manifested in the very roots of the dungeon. Thorned vines lashed out, binding one of the creatures, while another was sent crashing against the wall with a burst of wind-infused force.
Dae-hyun engaged the third, cutting through decayed fur and exposed bone with ease.
That left one more.
And it had locked onto Elijah.
For a split second, Elijah froze.
The wolf lunged.
His grip tightened around the knife. His instincts scread at him to run.
But sothing in him refused.
With a shaky breath, he lunged forward—
CLANG!
The knife barely scratched the creature's skull before slipping from his grasp, clattering to the ground.
The wolf growled, still very much alive.
A cold sweat ran down Elijah's spine.
Without thinking, he grabbed the hound's head with both hands—
And slamd it into the ground.
Once.
Twice.
Over and over—until he felt sothing crack.
The snarling stopped.
The wolf's skull was nothing but a pulpy ss against the stone floor.
"Hah… hah… fuck…" Elijah swallowed down the bile rising in his throat. "I feel like I just abused a damn dog…"
"Is everyone okay?"
"Yeah," Dae-hyun replied, wiping the blood off his blade.
'Goddamn of course its a mc for reason' Elijah mocked as he stared on Dae-hyun's condition. 'As soone who I wrote with no prior combat experience, it felt unamusingly unbelievable for soone to be okay seeing this scene...'
Aliyah's expression darkened. "I sense sothing ahead… a lot of them. At least a hundred."
Dae-hyun tensed. "It's definitely the S-rank Spider Egg Nest. We need to destroy them before they hatch."
Elijah's throat went dry.
The real nightmare was about to begin.
"So... it's starting, huh?"
As the three ventured deeper, they finally found it—the nest of eggs.
"Is this it?" Aliyah asked.
"Yeah... it should be destroyable with anything. As long as it cracks." Dae-hyun replied, already slashing at the eggs with his sword.
Aliyah and Elijah followed suit, each taking a turn at destroying the eggs.
The final egg remained.
Dae-hyun stepped forward, ready to break it apart.
But as he approached, he froze.
It was empty.
"Hey, did you already destroy this?" Dae-hyun asked, looking over at Aliyah.
Aliyah stepped over to inspect it, frowning.
"No? That side was yours, right?"
Elijah's expression darkened as a chill ran down his spine.
"Here it cos..."
Suddenly—
BANG!
A deafening crash echoed above them, sending the three staggering to the ground. The shockwave injured them, knocking them off balance.
Dae-hyun's eyes widened in horror as the sound of a monstrous presence grew louder.
This wasn't part of the plan.
This didn't appear in the ga he played.
He was certain—there was no monster like this. No creature so enormous.
His thoughts halted as the source of the noise erged from the shadows.
A spider—
A nightmare of proportions nearly as big as the mansion itself.
Dae-hyun's breath caught in his throat.
Just as confusion clouded his mind, Elijah's voice broke through, cold and certain.
"It's not just an S-rank…
It's the birth of a Calamity-grade nightmare. An S rank."
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